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I would normally open with a “good morning,” but, today, it doesn’t feel right. Another day, another bout of murder and mayhem across Europe and the Middle East. I’m Tom McTague, POLITICO’s chief U.K. political correspondent, hoping for a period of calm with just five days left until Christmas. If the violence keeps coming, 2016 may prove little more than a prelude to the real global crisis next year.

CHRISTMAS TERROR: After Brussels, Paris and Nice, now add Berlin. Late Monday, 12 people were killed and scores injured by a truck driven into a Christmas market in Germany’s capital. A man, understood to the be the driver, was arrested. Overnight indications pointed to a Nice-style terror attack, according to Berlin police. It comes after the U.S. State Department issued a warning in November that terrorists were targeting Christmas-related events, including markets. All the latest information is here.

RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY ASSASSINATED: A police officer of a NATO power shoots dead a Russian diplomat in broad daylight in protest at Moscow’s intervention in a Middle East civil war that has pitched the world’s great powers against one another. It sounds like the plot of a dystopian movie, but it was the reality in Turkey on Monday, when a 22-year-old off-duty police officer named in media reports as Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş shot dead Ambassador Andrey Karlov.

In European capitals, the news of the assassination was being treated deadly seriously. Karlov’s murder was frightening in its own right — caught on camera and beamed round the world — but also for its wider implications. How Russian President Vladimir Putin will react is the prime concern. At a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister and the heads of the overseas and domestic intelligence agencies, Putin called the killing a “provocation” aimed at derailing the warming Moscow-Ankara relationship and an attempt to inflame the Syria conflict. “There can be only one answer to this — stepping up the fight against terrorism, and the bandits will feel this.” Putin said, according to AFP.

A quick diplomatic response from Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdoğan appeared to have calmed the situation, at least initially, and may even have served to strengthen the hard-man bond between the pair of autocrats.

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LAGARDE GUILTY: International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde was found guilty of criminal negligence Monday for failing to protect the French state’s financial interests in a controversial case she decided on when she was finance minister under former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

However, the so-called Judicial Court of the Republic, a body made up of three professional judges and 12 members of parliament, decided not to impose any sentence on Lagarde, and ordered that her record not bare a trace of the ruling — a decision that seemed tailored to allow her to remain in her job at the IMF. The Washington-based body later obliged, announcing late Monday night that it had “full confidence” in Lagarde.

It was “a verdict that will satisfy no one,” POLITICO’s Pierre Briançon tells Playbook from Paris. “The court invented the concept of crime without punishment, to the relief of the French government, who had supported Lagarde’s candidacy to a second term last summer on the ground that she was the only remaining French citizen to head a major international organization.”

MORE EUROPEAN TROUBLE FOR MAY: Oh how she must wish Brexit already meant Brexit. On Wednesday the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg is expected to rule against the U.K. government in a case challenging the legality of legislation giving British authorities sweeping powers to collect emails, text messages and other data including people’s internet histories. Ironically, the case, which accuses the government of acting illegally, was originally brought by the now-Brexit Secretary David Davis, alongside Labour’s Tom Watson, and backed by the human rights organization Liberty. The ECJ is expected to rule against the government, demanding more judicial oversight on government and police surveillance. Ministers in the know expect the government to have to revisit the landmark Investigatory Powers Act next year, sparking a fresh Commons fight for May.

SLURP, SLURP: Theresa May attempted to put a brave face on her growing in-tray of problems Monday, hosting a Number 10 drinks reception for the Westminster lobby correspondents, tired and emotional after quite a year of U.K. political drama. Etiquette demanded the topics of conversation remained largely easy going. Awkward hacks, unused to such small talk, spent much of the evening grilling the PM about her Christmas cooking skills — Chinese spices and goose for lunch apparently.

BREXIT I: The U.K. PM was up in the House of Commons Monday, giving a statement on last week’s European Council. The occasion was another chance for MPs to squeeze more drops of information about the plan for Brexit from the government stone. As ever, they mostly failed. There were a few nods and winks for the Brexit Kremlinologists — particularly remarks in which the prime minister pointedly refused to rule out paying into the EU budget after the U.K. leaves the EU in 2019. However, May also reiterated her demand to reimpose U.K. control over EU immigration and end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

BREXIT II: Where MPs largely failed Monday, the right honorable men and women who chair the Commons’ (mostly) influential select committees will try today. Tune in to the liaison committee at 3 p.m. Brussels time, where chair Andrew Tyrie is sure to nudge some information out of the PM.

BREXIT III — STURGEON TO ANNOUNCE PROPOSALS TO PROTECT SCOTLAND’S PLACE IN EUROPE: On Monday, the U.K. prime minister promised to listen carefully to the Scottish first minister’s proposals for Brexit, which are set to be published today. Whether she can come close to matching the SNP’s demands is another matter. Watch the livestream here at noon Brussels time.

TRUMP CONFIRMED: It’s official. Donald J. Trump will be the 45th president of the United States of America. He was officially elected in the electoral college Monday, “despite all the distorted and inaccurate media,” as he put it on Twitter last night.

PARLIAMENT — TOO EXPENSIVE TO HIRE STAFF TO CHECK MEP BILLS: More grist to the mill for the Euroskeptics. Danish newspaper Berlingske asked the European Parliament why the institution didn’t require MEPs to submit receipts for things purchased with EU money. “The Parliament would have to employ much more personnel if all of the different invoices gathered by the 751 members of the Parliament were to be processed and checked. It would increase costs instead of reducing them,” said the institution’s spokeswoman Marjory van den Broeke.

PARLIAMENT — SOCIALISTS PLAN TO TAKE BACK THE PRESIDENCY: A week after Antonio Tajani‘s surprise win as the candidate for the main conservative bloc in the European Parliament, the Socialists are preparing a counter-attack to win back the presidency, Maïa de la Baume reports. “The roadmap to victory, as they see it, involves courting the Greens, lobbying for a Socialist at the helm of the European Council and uniting Europe’s left-wing forces.”

POLAND — KACZYŃSKI LOSING GRIP ON POWER? “In the little more than a year that Poland’s Law and Justice party has been in power, it has introduced a series of dramatic and controversial changes to the country’s core institutions,” writes Wojciech Przybylski. “It’s tempting to conclude that the party’s leader Jarosław Kaczyński has successfully seized dictatorial powers, ruling from the shadows in all but name. Instead, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he may have overreached.”

COMMISSION — POLAND ON WEDNESDAY’S COLLEGE AGENDA: Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has demanded the last college of commissioners should be focused on the political situation in Poland, where Prime Minister Beata Szydło denounced what she described as a “wave of hate.” Poland’s government on Monday showed no sign of backing down over a controversial budget vote that has sparked a growing political and constitutional crisis. Hundreds of anti-government protesters gathered in front of parliament for a fourth day, while rows of police officers protected the building. Inside, opposition MPs refused to end a sit-in in the main debating chamber.

COMMISSION — APPLE COMPLAINS IT’S BEING VICTIMIZED: The European Commission laid out in detail on Monday its case for hitting Apple with a €13 billion bill in back taxes to Ireland, while the U.S. company appealed and Dublin accused Brussels of interfering in a sovereign state’s tax affairs. The Commission’s competition authorities published a 130-page document — much of it redacted by Apple to protect corporate secrets — to justify its complaint dating from August that the firm’s corporate structure allowed it to pay as little as 0.005 percent in taxes in Ireland.

Apple’s rotten appeal: Richard A. Epstein, a professor of law, argues Apple is playing the pity card instead of addressing the fundamentals of the Commission’s case.

COMMISSION — FEDERICA MOGHERINI HEADS TO EGYPT: The EU’s foreign policy chief is in Cairo to participate in the fourth EU-League of Arab States (LAS) ministerial meeting, where she will meet Egypt’s Sahar Nasr, minister of international cooperation, and Sameh Shoukry, minister of foreign affairs, as well as Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil and his Jordanian counterpart, Nasser Judeh.

COUNCIL — RUSSIA SANCTIONS EXTENDED TO JULY 2017: The EU’s sanctions against Russia were formally prolonged Monday for the next six months, limiting access to EU primary and secondary capital markets for five major Russian banks, three energy companies and three defense firms.

EU-UKRAINE SUMMIT GOES OFF WITHOUT A BANG: The EU’s Mogherini and Ukraine’s First Vice Prime Minister, Stepan Kubiv, reaffirmed existing statements about the country’s territorial integrity. The European Investment Bank also signed off a set of loans, totalling €600 million.

… AS UKRAINE NATIONALIZES A BANK: Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko is nationalizing the country’s largest retail bank in an effort to stabilize the financial sector, reports David Stern.

GERMANY AND BELGIUM AGREE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT INSPECTION REGIME: German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks last year questioned the safety of two Belgian reactors situated near the German border. A new agreement signed Monday paves the way for joint inspections of the power plants (story for POLITICO Energy Pro subscribers).

NATO — STOLTENBERG DESCRIBES NATO-RUSSIA COUNCIL MEETING: “In times of tension, dialogue is more important than ever,” said Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, after the third meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. “So we remain committed to dialogue. And we will continue to keep channels of communication open.” Playbook wonders if he was referring to Twitter as well as the normal communications channels used by heads of state.

SWEDEN — FAR-RIGHT SWEDISH DEMOCRATS DEBATE USE OF RACIST TERMS: Despite attempts to clean up the image of the party, senior members of the Swedish Democrats have been caught out debating the use of racist words in a leaked email exchange. “We might as well put down the party and join the Liberal Party and Center Party if we are so afraid to call things by their correct names,” said Björn Söder, a speaker in the country’s parliament.

GYSI TO LEAD LEFTWING EUROPEAN PARTY: Gregor Gysi, the chair of the Die Linke parliamentary group in the Bundestag, was appointed president of the European Left, a new grouping of Communist and Socialist parties in Europe. He is replacing Pierre Laurent, president of the French Communist Party.

BULGARIA — BORISSOV DEMANDS ELECTORAL REFORM: After losing the presidential elections last month, outgoing center-right Prime Minister Boyko Borissov wants to introduce a major overhaul of the country’s voting system in return for his party’s support for a new coalition government. The reforms would likely kill off most of the country’s smaller parties, so it’s not clear why they would sign up.

SPAIN — IS ZAPATERO COMING BACK? Former Socialist President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was sighted in the congress Monday, having spent most of the past five years out of the public eye.

MOLDOVA — PRESIDENT-ELECT REJECTS ‘ROMANIZATION’ OF COUNTRY: Igor Dodon, the pro-Russian whom Moldovans recently elected as their president, has rejected what he describes as “Romanization” of his country, whose population’s main language is Romanian. “Romania offer free studies each year for more than 5,000 young people from Moldova,” said Dodon Monday. “These young people receive a scholarship, free accommodation. Do you understand what they teach there? They receive Romanian citizenship before returning. This equates to Romanization.”

APPOINTED: Emmanuel Desplechin becomes the new secretary-general of ePure, the EU lobby of the European renewable ethanol industry.

APPOINTED: Ana Maria Rodriguez, the information counsellor in the Spanish EU embassy, was appointed director general for information and public diplomacy in the foreign affairs ministry in Madrid.

CORRECTION: An item in Playbook Monday incorrectly referred to the arrests in Belgium of 10 teenagers on terrorism-related charges, based on an erroneous report on Belgian news site HLN.be. According to Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office who was cited in the article, the 10 youths, between the ages of 14 and 18, were detained in 2015 or 2016 on minor terrorism related charges, including several accused of chatting with militants in Syria using the Telegram messaging app. They were not suspected of plotting to attack Christmas markets, Van Der Sypt said.

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